Announcements
Chair Martin encouraged the Senators to continue efforts to solicit nominations for the college-wide elections.

The ad hoc committee for reviewing the academic tenure and non-tenure policy is scheduled to meet on April 1 at 3:30 p.m. The meeting will be held in the Faculty Senate conference room.

Chair Martin called attention to the announcement sent out from Betsy Brown pertaining to the American Council on Education. There are two meetings scheduled from 2-3 p.m. in 109 Page Hall--Tuesday, April 7 and Thursday April 9, 2009.

Update on the Executive Committee Meeting
Chair Martin reported that the committee discussed polices that came from the Graduate School and they deemed two of them ready for consideration by the full Senate -- the Academic Difficulty Policy and the English Proficiency Policy. The third policy regarding the advanced Bachelor Masters Program raised some more discussions.

The committee discussed some issues of concern that was raised at the last meeting regarding the library in terms of services, budget issues, and some of the bigger IT versus “in-person” issues.

Provost Nielsen discussed the budget cut ideas in some more detail.

Chair Martin reported that he attended a meeting with Marc Hoit, Vice Chancellor for the Office of Information Technology. Vice Chancellor Hoit has been very concerned about making sure faculty get involved as we develop a variety of programs and processes with respect to information technology, particularly the issue of archiving all email, which is mandated through the Governor’s office.

4. Libraries Update Susan Nutter, Vice Provost and Director of Libraries, gave an update on the number of subject specialists they have, where they have come from, and where they currently are.

Vice Provost Nutter reported that they had 20 subject specialists in 1992, 30 in 2001, and 32 in 2008, which is a 60% increase since 1991. This year, with budget cuts planned, they are not planning to cut any subject specialist positions.

Vice Provost Nutter stated that they have a NCSU Library Fellows Program to attract the best and brightest of library staff and it has been very successful. Over time 45% of those fellows have been put in the research and information services and the remainder of them are spread across the library.

Vice Provost Nutter reported that there are 32,000 students and 2500 faculty and researchers, and they are looking at how to serve 35,000 people in a very personal way. She stated that there is a subject specialist for every 1100 persons.

Vice Provost Nutter reported that reference transactions are down 76% since 1993-94.

Vice Provost Nutter reported that government documents have changed dramatically over the last twenty years and they are seeing the government give away or sell government documents, so that there are no longer government documents that they receive free.

Vice Provost Nutter reported that about two and a half years ago the average number of people visiting the library was about 5000 people a day and this year they are looking at about 12,000 per day.

5. ElectionsSecretary of the Faculty
Senator Helmut Hergeth was elected to serve as Secretary for the next two years.

Faculty AssemblySenator Richard Bernhard and Senator Paul Williams were elected to serve two-year terms on the Faculty Assembly.

Secretary Hans Kellner and Dr. Alton Banks were elected to serve as alternates.

Council on AthleticsSenator Keith Edmisten and Terry Hill, Assistant to the Vice Provost and Director of Libraries were elected to serve three-year terms on the Council on Athletics.

6. Policies to Consider REG 02.45.1 Academic DifficultyThere was some discussion on the policy and since there were still questions about the wording, Chair Martin suggested that the policy not be voted on today.

Chair Martin asked that ideas be sent to him or the Chair of the Committee.

REG 02.15.2 English Proficiency Requirements for International Applicants
Senator Hemenway reported that the changes to this policy are based on a lot of research of peer institutions and also looking at the scores of students that are taking the TOEFL and being admitted here.

A motion passed unanimously to endorse the policy.

Chair Martin thanked Senior Vice Provost Katie Perry for her services to the university and the Senate gave her a round of applause.